by Dale Hudson
Prosecution and defense attorneys sat in comfortable leather chairs at the large, rectangular wooden tables at the front of the courtroom facing the judge and the court reporter. Family members took their seats behind the prosecution or defense, while potential jurors sat behind them in less comfortable chairs.
Renee had been brought in from the back of the courthouse, up the elevator and escorted in chains to the second-floor auditorium. She had traded her shackles and prison-issued orange jumpsuit, worn during her preliminary hearings, for a conservative, dark blue pantsuit. She donned a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses and silver earrings. Her long, dark hair had been cut, pulled back and adorned with a gold hair bow. She wore a little eye shadow, a touch of rouge and a bit of red lipstick. It was obvious she had been “toned” down for trial, looking nothing like the sultry stripper Carlee who had once danced and trolled the stage floor at the Silver Fox Gentleman’s Club, collecting dollar bills like they were rose petals.
Cottingham began the trial by explaining the charges. He then asked Renee to stand and face the jury panel. She seemed nervous as the judge reminded them this was not a death penalty case. It took only one day for Cottingham to whittle down a jury from more than 225 perspective jurors to a panel of twelve jurors and two alternates, evenly divided between men and women.
The defense gave a hint as to what cards they were playing in their hand when Diggs excused the first eight male candidates. In order to give a fair and impartial rendering to his client, Diggs believed it required a jury of her peers. He thought he had struck pay dirt when one female candidate revealed she worked at a bar from 7:00 P.M. to about 3:00 A.M. in the morning. When she asked to be dismissed due to a hardship it would place on her child, Diggs protested heavily.
“Your Honor, just for the record, and not singling out this particular juror,” he pleaded, “but this is the objection that we’ve made before in these types of cases. When you’ve got a general exclusion of young women from the jury just because of their children, it impacts on the cross-sectional representation of the jury.”
Cottingham listened to Diggs’s objection, but did not bend. “I understand what you’re saying. But if a mother comes to me and says that there’s nobody to take care of that child at night but her, what do you think this court ought to do?”
Diggs offered a knee-jerk response that the county should provide some type of child care in those situations, but Cottingham made light of it.
Where some trials take days, even weeks, for the voir dire, Judge Cottingham had his jurors already selected, had given them their instructions and dismissed them, along with the other potential jurors, shortly after lunch. By 3:45 P.M., he announced to the lawyers he was ready to hear their motions.
It was obvious the defense still had a bee in its bonnet over their client’s previous death penalty charge. When assistant solicitor Humphries reported they had not received any of the expert witness reports from the defense, Diggs stated evasively that a biographical sketch and the subject matter of their testimony had been forwarded. And he believed, under the discovery rules, that was all they were entitled to.
Cottingham wouldn’t hear of it. He expected a report from every one of these witnesses regardless of what excuse they had for not providing it. He asked Diggs to send them this message: “You telephone those witnesses and tell them that before they are permitted to testify, a written report will be required. Or they will not be permitted and they certainly won’t be paid.”
Diggs stirred the pot again with the death penalty issue. The problem, he insisted, was when the solicitor dropped the death penalty, it sped everything up. It had thrown a wrench in his spokes and screwed up his schedule for expert witnesses, who had already agreed to be there the following week. Furthermore, Diggs squabbled, the notice of the death penalty against their client had generated a lot of pretrial publicity and they were concerned as to what extent it would have on the outcome of this case.
“For the record,” Diggs submitted, “among other things, I believe when the death penalty was served at the bond hearing in December of 1998, it was done for one purpose. And that was to prevent this defendant from being admitted to bail and released on bond.”
Diggs pointed out that the indictment against Renee Poole didn’t come until August 1999, and then the withdrawal of the bond notice came after that—two working days before the call of the case for the trial. Renee had sat in jail all that time from June 1998, while her codefendant, John Frazier, had already been released on bond.
“The shooter in this case was released on bond under the state’s theory of the case and she wasn’t,” Diggs went on to say. “And the only reason for that was because they wanted to squeeze her, as we put in the motion. To testify, provide evidence and certain testimony, and when that didn’t happen, they served a death notice in the case just to keep her in jail—to prevent her from being released on bond. The fact that her codefendant, who is not under a death penalty notice, was released on bond—and the fact that he was the shooter—is strong evidence that she would have been admitted to bail and released on bond, and she’s had a constitutional right deprived for seventeen months because of that action by the state. What other remedy do we have in that situation other than to dismiss the charge?”
It took Cottingham all of five minutes to assure Diggs that Judge Breeden had the right to refuse his client bond—even if the death penalty notice had not been there. He denied him the motion to dismiss the trial and told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t agree, then take his arguments to another forum.
Diggs gave it one last shot. Shifting anxiously at his table, he warned, “The confidence the general public is gonna have in the procedure that was used in this case [is at stake]. And that’s not where we want to go when we’ve got a young person’s life at stake in terms of spending the rest of her life in jail. We’ve already got a tragic situation in the death of Brent Poole. There’s no doubt about it. We’ve got another potentially tragic situation by having an innocent person in jail. Our point is that it undermines the confidence in the system to which Your Honor has a chance to show—”
Cottingham cut him off. He let Diggs know right away the monkey was not on his back. “It is expressed in the verdict of the jury, who will hear the testimony, and I have full confidence that the jury will do what they perceive to be right and what the evidence suggests, and in my view, that’s where the confidence is in the court.”
And with that being said, a little housekeeping was done, and with nothing more from the prosecution and defense, court was adjourned at 4:30 P.M. On the way out of the courtroom, reporter Adam Shapiro, with News Channel 12, announced he was taking bets that Renee Poole would walk. Nobody offered to side against him.
CHAPTER 30
The trial of the State of South Carolina v. Kimberly Renee Poole reconvened Wednesday, November 10, at 9:30 A.M. Adam Shapiro and his television crew was there to film it. He talked with Marie Summey before the trial started and told her not to worry, he wouldn’t be around to question her when the verdict was handed down. “Well, don’t you worry,” she told him. “John and Renee are coming home.”
As a courtesy to the defense, Judge Cottingham had given them an extra day to prepare and meet with their witnesses. The jurors now sat in much more comfortable chairs to the left of the prosecution’s table, and adjacent to the camera crew from Court TV. Cottingham made it clear to the jury a second time that the state was not seeking the death penalty against Renee Poole. The burden of proof, however, was on the state to prove her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The indictment was for murder and criminal conspiracy.
Greg Hembree and Fran Humphries, both dressed in dark blue suits, sat at the prosecution table beside Bill Diggs, his attorney son Parnell Diggs and co-counsel Orrie West. At the end of the defense table private investigator C. E. Martin sat to the right of Renee and helped with the workload. His presence would be explained later by the defense in detail.
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sp; The victim’s and defendant’s families sat directly behind their respective attorneys, along with their supportive staff members. As normally occurs in a trial, the lawyers and staff members continually exchanged whispers and shuffled paperwork throughout the proceedings. For some odd reason, there was one large wooden chair in the courtroom—directly behind and in the middle of the prosecution and defense tables—that was elevated approximately twelve inches off the floor. Unbeknownst to anyone but himself, Detective Terry Altman made this his special seat. It gave him the appearance of being in an elevated position, and he sat there, grinning like a Cheshire cat who had finally caught his songbird. A small, insignificant matter, yet it seemed to give the prosecution a large boost in the courtroom.
Sitting to the right of the defense table in the gallery reserved for newsprint reporters was John Hinton, of the Winston-Salem Journal. For several days, Hinton would be the lone wolf covering the trial, writing dozens of articles about the Poole murder case. North Carolina television reporters and their cameramen were positioned in the balcony, appreciative of having been granted a bird’s-eye view of the proceedings. Outside the courtroom, their parked satellite vans beamed the news back daily to their affiliates, just in time to share with their interested viewers. Judge Cottingham had given permission for the use of cameras and tape recorders in the courtroom, but disallowed the use of any strobes or camera flashes. The handful of spectators sitting in the gallery behind the families believed from what they had read in the newspaper that the prosecution and his team already had the upper hand. There seemed to be no unreasonable doubt the suspects were lovers and that love or jealously was always motive enough for murder.
Renee looked straight ahead when the judge read Count 1 of the indictment:
Kimberly Renee Poole along with John Boyd Frazier did in Horry County on or about June the 9th of 1998, willfully, feloniously, and intentionally, with malice aforethought, kill the victim, William Brent Poole, by means of shooting the victim twice in the head, and the victim did die as a proximate result thereof in Horry County on or about June the 9th, 1998.
Count 2 involved criminal conspiracy in that:
Kimberly Renee Poole did in Horry County on or about June the 9th of 1998, and dates preceding, unlawfully, knowingly, willfully, and feloniously, unite, combine, conspire, confederate, agree, and have tacit understanding with John Boyd Frazier and/or with other Persons, whose names are unknown to the Grand Jurors, for the purposes of committing the offense of murder of William Brent Poole.
Bill Diggs glanced at his client and took a deep breath, knowing he was about to begin a tough battle against the state. He had already filed his motions to try and stop the onslaught, arguing with the judge that Renee had been slighted from the day she had been arrested. But it had fallen on deaf ears.
Diggs was also about to discover that solicitor Hembree and deputy solicitor Humphries were meticulous lawyers who had done their homework. They had crossed all their t’s and dotted all their i’s. Not only would he have to play a near-perfect game of defense to get Renee acquitted, throughout the course of the trial, he also would have to defend the prosecution’s accusations against John Frazier. It was not an enviable position. With Court TV airing the event in its entirety, and other news crews taping for nightly broadcasts, Diggs found himself in the battle of his career with the prosecution pulling out all the stops.
Fran Humphries was the first to draw blood. He kept his opening statement brief, telling the jury what he was going to prove to them and how he would present witnesses to substantiate his opening statement. He stood directly in front of the jurors and never broke eye contact. In a soft and low voice, he laid out the prosecution’s case.
“In late April or so of 1998, Kimberly Renee Poole became so confined by the walls which were her ordinary life—you know the life that I talk about, the life that most of us aspire to—those walls became so confining to her that she developed a plan, a plan with a lover that she had had for about three months at the time. And on May 1, 1998, Kimberly Renee Poole, this defendant, took her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, boxed up her belongings and, in the dead of night while her husband was at work, moved out of the marital residence and moved in with a fellow named John Boyd Frazier.
“Now, folks, if that were the end of it, it would be an age-old sad story, divorce and moving on, but Mrs. Poole got some good advice. She got some good advice which told her, ‘Mrs. Poole, if you believe that based on your circumstances, having left the marital residence, having no reputable and steady employment, and in the midst of an adulterous affair, you think you’re gonna keep this child, you are sorely mistaken.’
“On May fifteenth, Kimberly Renee Poole moved back in with her husband, our victim, William Brent Poole. Now, was she happy about it? No, ma’am. No, sir. And the evidence will show you. What did she do about it? She treated this situation just as she had treated each and every situation in her life. What Kimberly Renee Poole wanted, Kimberly Renee Poole got.
“That home was not the place for her, but she wanted it all. And, folks, there was only one way to have it all. Oh, she wanted the home, but she didn’t want the husband. And in the first week of June, after having moved back in with her long-suffering husband, she meets with her lover and a number of others, and over the course of an evening, plans a trap which will ultimately gain her that one thing she wants, which, folks, is everything.
“They planned it in meticulous detail, leaving absolutely nothing to chance. They set the trap, folks, with the one bait that this man, William Brent Poole, could not resist, and that was this: William Brent Poole, hoping against hope, hoped for a meaningful reunion with his wife. A reuniting of his family. Father, mother and daughter. Kimberly Renee Poole proposed to William Brent Poole that they take a vacation, that they celebrate their third anniversary, that they do that in Myrtle Beach, and on June 9, 1998, in the very late evening hours, on their anniversary, Kimberly Renee Poole walked her husband of three years, the father of her daughter, down an Horry County beach, away from the lights, to her lover, John Boyd Frazier. And there in the darkness, ladies and gentlemen, John Boyd Frazier shot and killed William Brent Poole.
“Folks, this is a murder case. Now I’ve already told you that Kimberly Renee Poole didn’t pull the trigger. This case is founded upon a legal principle called the law of parties. Now the judge is gonna charge you about the law in this case, but as a preface to that, let me tell you this: The law of parties basically is this; it’s more commonly called the hand of one is the hand of all, and what it means is this. If one is present, if one is aiding and abetting or participating, even though that person does not have the finger on the trigger, that person is equally—folks, equally—as guilty as the person who pulls the trigger and fires the fatal shots.
“That principle is founded in common sense because I tell you this, ladies and gentlemen, but for the conduct of Kimberly Renee Poole in this instance, William Brent Poole, husband, father and son, would not be dead.
“Over the course of the next few days, the state will present to you a number of witnesses, maybe as much as thirty-five or forty. We’ll start at the crime scene. From there, we’ll go back, because that is really where the story is.
“Now, you may ask me, ‘Mr. Solicitor, how do you know all of this? How do you know all of this?’ She told us. Kimberly Renee Poole. She talked to law enforcement immediately after, and in her first contact with law enforcement, she described an armed robbery and murder by an unknown male assailant in dark clothing. That’s where she starts, but, folks, over the course of the next four days, Kimberly Renee Poole, predator, becomes prey, and as walls, which she absolutely abhors, when they come in and start to enclose her, then and only then does she begin to trickle out the truth.
“You’ll have the opportunity to hear all those statements and, more importantly, folks, you’ll hear the evidence which supports those statements, at least in the portions that are true, by a number of witnesses whose cr
edibility you’ll judge.
“This is a murder case. This is a case based on a conspiracy and this is a case in which our victim, William Brent Poole, but for the actions of his wife of three years, a woman who wanted it all, would be alive today. Folks, it will require your absolute certain attention to detail, because, folks, it is the details....
“But I tell you, folks, today and the next few days are maybe some of the most important days you’ll breathe on this earth because you have a unique opportunity in this trial to speak the truth when you render your verdict because that’s that—that means, to speak the truth.”
Humphries thanked the jurors for their service in his closing remarks, then gave way to the defense.
Bill Diggs rose to make his opening statement and addressed the jurors.
“Having staked out what the state’s position is in this case,” he began, “I want you to think for just a minute about this: what if he is wrong? I want you to think a minute about what this young girl, this young woman, has been through herself for the last year and a half.
“They are public servants. They are doing their jobs, but they better hope that they’re right, because if they are wrong we’ve compounded a tragedy. The tragedy of Brent Poole’s death with another tragedy, and that is forcing her to go through an accusation of the most terrible kind that we could make in our society. I want you to think about this. What if they are wrong?